


His Dark Embrace

by Sp00py



Category: Bendy and the Ink Machine
Genre: Also chapter 2 is regular Ink Demon Bendy, Bendy is a little... Different than in canon, Broken Bones, F/M, Fear, Fear of Death, Forced Nudity, Forced Orgasm, Graphic Rape, Groping, Hunting, It gets a little HANDSY, POV Original Female Character, Reader-Insert, Strangulation, Surgery, The Giant hand is a character now, Vivisection, eldritch Bendy, gentle rape, graphic death, he's better
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-14
Updated: 2019-07-09
Packaged: 2019-08-02 06:59:11
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 4
Words: 13,567
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16300271
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sp00py/pseuds/Sp00py
Summary: You're trapped now, and he knows you're here.





	1. Playing

**Author's Note:**

> Bendy borrowed from doceo_percepto.

There’s ink everywhere. It’s splashed up your ankles, across your face. You’re all turned around, everything is dark, and this was such a bad, _bad_ idea. There are things in the darkness.

You didn’t sign up for this when you’d come in. George had — you don’t want to think about George, not after what happened. Tears are tracing paths through the ink on your face. Oh god, you’re going to die. It was just supposed to be something fun, something a little dangerous, a little forbidden. It wasn’t supposed to be this nightmare.

One of those things that got George bursts out of a puddle of ink, thick fingers scrambling at your skirt. You shriek and dart away, back the way you came. There’d been one of those boxes, Miracle Stations. They leave you alone in them. You don’t know why, but you don’t know anything about what’s happening here. It’s all so impossible, you feel like you’re about to lose your mind, if you hadn’t already and just don’t realize it.

Your fingers fumble at the door. You swing it open and throw yourself inside, slamming the door behind you. You sink to your knees. Oh god, oh god, oh god. You’ve never been very religious, but this situation would turn any sinner into a saint. “Please, God, please. I don’t want to die. P-please…” Your prayer drowns in more broken sobbing.

God’s not here, despite what the signs you’ve seen says. Our Savior, He will set us free — you don’t want to meet Him, whoever He is, but they give you some hope. There are others here. There were, at least. You’ve heard their recordings. Maybe some of them made it out alive, instead of succumbing to whatever madness lay in the ink pouring down walls, flooding the floors.

You cower in the Miracle Station, sobbing, chest heaving, sweater soaked through with tears and ink. You feel so small and pathetic, powerless. You don’t want to die, but you're so lost.

If you could, you’d stay in this station for forever, but you can’t. You have to try to leave. You have to survive. It’s a base instinct you never thought you’d had before. You can’t die here. There’s so much you want to do: you want to graduate, you and George were going to move to the mountains. You and she had it all planned out. It’s hard to think that something once real, something you’ve been so ready for, won’t come to pass. Your entire life has been destroyed, quickly and pointlessly.

The mere thought of what happened to George happening to you terrifies you into action. Death is terrifying. You’ve always been aware of your own mortality, but that is nothing compared to seeing someone murdered right in front of you. Screaming, begging for you to help but you couldn’t, _you couldn’t help._

If you stay, that will be you. You check through the small window in the door, then gingerly open it. Avoid ink puddles, avoid any ink somehow. Arm yourself, that would be good. George was the more sporty of the two of you, but she’d taught you how to swing a bat, and you’ve always been good at running.

You feel more steady with a plan. It’s not much of a plan, but you don’t think about that. You have to survive.

Quietly you step out of the Miracle Station. You move slowly, cautiously, squinting into the gloom for any ink puddles, any deeper shadows that might house monsters. Soon, you find a board that is splintered, gouged through on part of it with deep, black grooves, but it will work. You swing it a few times to get the feel for it. It’s solid, should give you some leverage if you encounter any of those monsters.

You creep along, glaring tearfully at every Bendy cutout that you encounter. You want to smash them all and burn this place to the ground. But you have to survive to manage that.

You check each corner, jab every puddle that seems like it might be hostile, tracing your steps backwards as much as you can remember from the blind panic that had sent you further into the studio. Things look different coming back, but you have no other choice than to move and pray it’s the right direction. You note every box with the Little Miracle Station sign on it just in case.

You sag in relief when you spot a door labeled EXIT, though it’s short-lived. The hallway between the door and you is flooded with inky water. Every drip and movement of the liquid might be a monster, you can feel it in your bones, in the sudden prey-like tension of your muscles. This is the only exit you’ve seen.

You step in, barely making a ripple. It immediately soaks your sock, but nothing attacks you. Another step. Another. Your grip around the board is bone-white.

You’re halfway there when something bursts out of the ink just in front of you. As though in slow motion you see it form, skeletal and bestial, a familiar face — one you’ve seen grinning at you all over — melting into a twisted caricature of the Bendy you recognize.

You shriek and reflexively swing. The board hits with a wet, sucking smack. You can't pull it free. You release it and stumble back, sloshing agonizingly slowly through the ink until you’re safely in the hall and can _run._ Your feet leave impressions on the ground, marking the exact path you’ve taken as Bendy lunges after you. He’s large and serpentine in his movement, and he crashes into the wall turning corners, all limbs and spines and splashing ink. He’s almost like a centipede uncurling, twisting and skittering along walls, and everywhere he touches ink spreads like poison.

 _Miracle Station, Miracle Station --_ you fling yourself into one and cringe back from the door, waiting for Bendy to tear it open and devour you. He hits the front and the entire station rocks, then settles. He paces around outside, claws clacking and occasionally tracing across the door. The spreading ink you can see through the window pulses.

Then he leaves. The ink recedes. You remember to breathe. Even that thing can't get into the stations. Your heart is in your throat.

You scan for Bendy, then open the door again. An ink trail is is visible down the path you came. He had circled back. That… that changed the game a lot. Weapons wouldn't work against him. He hadn't even reacted to your attack. You barely outran him. Your plan (such that it was) is in shambles.

You can't risk that exit again. You need to find another way, any other way. God, you're still so shaky you feel like your knees are going to give out at any moment. You're in no state to run much less plan. You'll just… you'll just go forward. That's all you can do.

You stumble down the hall, jump at every splash and puddle. None of them attack you. You feel oddly alone. Like you're the only thing here. You and Bendy. The groaning pipes make you think he’s behind every wall, around every corner. Then you think -- insane as it sounds -- you think they've _fled_ . They fear Bendy. As anything would. He’s somehow particularly horrific, even given this place. So otherworldly and _wrong_.

You don't even realize that you've waded into more ink until the sloshing alerts you. You shake yourself from the haze of dread that had descended and feel a spike of fresh fear. You spin around. There are stairs nearby and ink all around you. The entire hall is flooded as far as you can see. How could this have happened — you know you’d been on dry wooden floors, you’re sure of it.

You hear something else splashing and stand very, very still. Bendy swings around a corner, head swaying side to side. You're completely vulnerable.

You have to run. You can't die here. The heartbeat it takes to arrive at that decision feels like an eternity. You turn tail.

Bendy lunges after. Running through the ink is like running through quicksand in a nightmare. It sloshes and shifts, you can't see the obstacles you're stumbling over, you can't move _fast enough_ no matter how much your legs burn. The creature gets closer, his pace slower than before. Irrationally you think he’s impeded by the ink too.

You don't see where you're running, but you pray for a Miracle Station or a way out of the ink to appear. It's a labyrinth down here, designed by some madman to circle in on itself and lead nowhere. Everything is flooded now. Ink gushes from broken pipes, things or people groan beneath the rushing sound of your own breathing, the pounding of your heart.

There! Tucked away behind a barrel, another station. You drag the door open, fighting the ink, expecting every second that Bendy will dig his teeth or claws into your back. You slip inside. The door closes behind you.

You made it. You're safe.

Bendy stalks around in the ink outside, every step wet and loud. You cover your mouth to stifle your frantic breathing. He can’t come in. He can’t come in.

A voice, something you’ve heard before in old cartoons, calls out from just outside the station. It’s entirely incongruous with the creature that had been chasing you, high and cheerful.

“Olly Olly oxen free,” he sing-songs. “Game’s over, you can come out now.”

You don’t believe him. The game isn’t done, it’s just changed in some way you don’t understand. He doesn’t sound human. The handle rattles. You grab for the door, use your weight to keep it closed.

“C’mon, I just wanna talk,” the voice says. Bendy. Bendy’s out there talking to you. A cartoon character. You’ve lost your damn mind.

You bite your lip on any cries that want to escape, until: “Fiiiine,” he whines, and you hear Bendy retreat, “I guess you’re not here.”

You slump down, relief turning your muscles to jelly. Somehow, some way, you’ve survived again. Maybe… maybe you really can make it out of here —

Something rams the Miracle Station, sends it sliding the half inch until it hits the wall. Claws reach through the opening, wrench it part way off its hinges, then more claws grapple and yank. The door tears away like paper and lands in the ink with a splash. Bendy, all sinuous and dripping dark, fills the opening. You press yourself harder into the back of the station, but there’s nowhere to go. Bendy overwhelms your vision.

It’s then you have a moment — a brief, chilling moment — where you understand those signs splashed across the walls. This is a god. But he’s no savior; he’s a monstrous, inhuman god.

Any scream you can muster dies in your throat as Bendy reaches in and wraps his claws around you. He’s gentle and careful, but you can feel the strength in those razor claws, the way they tear easily through your sweater, your shirt, leave nicks on your sides that immediately well with blood.

Your hands scratch at the sides of the Miracle Station, nails catching at the wood. Several break away. Now you scream, and it’s animalistic and wild. You’re yanked out of the station with a powerful ease and thrown into the ink-flooded hall. Ink flows over your head. For a brief moment there’s just darkness and silence, then you burst through with a gasp, scramble backwards. The ink pulls at your clothes, drags you down.

Bendy stalks toward you. You crawl down the hall. It’s pathetic, useless, but you do it anyway. Your body’s running on instinct. Your mind is frozen in terror. You know with absolute, soul-crushing certainty that you’ll die here in this miasmic nightmare. You just want to wake up from it, find out it was all a horrible, twisted dream.

Every step Bendy takes closes the minuscule distance you’ve managed to put between you. You can’t back up fast enough. You can’t get your legs under you to run again.

“Please don’t, please, please. I don’t want to die,” is all you can think to say. And it’s absolutely nonsensical. Nobody wants to die. Nobody would welcome this.

Bendy shoves you under the ink again. Air rushes from your lungs from his weight, bubbles up to the surface. You claw at his leg, kick, swallow ink and choke.

He lets you up just when you think you’re about to drown, and you hack and vomit up ink. You get barely a moment to recooperate when you’re pushed under again.

He does this several times, and each one you’re sure it’s the last, that Bendy won’t let you back up. Your struggles weaken, your vision is hazy, and there’s ink in your eyes, dribbling down your face with spit and tears.

Then he stops. It takes you a moment to register, but your body is already scrabbling away, to the stairs that are so, so close. Stupidly, you think if you just make it to them you’ll survive.

Bendy lets you crawl up a few of them before he pins you once more. He’s playing with you, toying with your life like it’s nothing. Like you have no purpose but to die by his claws and teeth.

You twist and writhe but can’t escape. His face descends, curls down to your neck. A long, black tongue slithers out and laps up your throat, along your jaw. It teases at your ear before tracing black slime over your eyes and dipping into your mouth.

You gag.

His tongue slides moistly out, leaving you coughing, and traces down the ink-soaked front of your sweater until Bendy finds a rip in it and delves in to lick at your cuts. His teeth are terrifyingly close to your belly. He could bite right through, rip out your guts, chew them apart. You whine, the fight gone. Just waiting for death.

It doesn’t come quickly. Bendy instead works its way down your skirt, then up your leg. Your muscles tremble in anticipation of a bite, and you don’t even think what he’s doing until he catches your legs in his claws and hikes them up. You slide down a step and bang your head on the edge with a sharp cry.

The word rape surges forward from the dull throb of pain and terror. You don’t even comprehend it at first even though your skirt and slip are bunched around your hips, your legs are splayed wide. Bendy’s claws settle on your shoulders, digging your back into the angles of the stairs. A long, tapered member curls between his legs.

“No, no no — please, Bendy, Bend—ah!” Your underwear offers no resistance as Bendy shoves in, sliding full to the hilt. You’ve never — nobody’s ever — it _hurts_. You yowl and arch up, trying to pull yourself free as he delves deep, deep inside.

The base is thick and every centimeter stretches you, filling you with agony. You think you can feel it all the way up into your belly. Maybe you can. You are feeling a little woozy, and there’s something warm mixing with the icy ink stabbing into you with rough, erratic thrusting.

You push at Bendy’s arms, but your hands only slide in the ink, and soon you give up. Your head lolls, a numb sort of peace descending. Your stomach is on fire, but that’s okay. Blood or ink is splashed across your thighs, it’s hard to tell in the yellow light that permeates the studio. You hope it’s just ink. You think it’s not.

Bendy’s movements slow, become leisurely. Long, thin spikes catch the light. Something is strung up between them, something that came out of you. His length disappears between your legs again, digs in deeper, rips out more fleshy chunks.`

You try to make any noise but can only manage a bubble of blood and sloppy, wet sobbing. Bendy slowly, gently lowers his head. His rictus grin opens, and knife-blade teeth sink into your shoulder. Blood spurts warm up your neck and across your chest and Bendy’s tongue follows. You produce a strained whistling.

You’re dying. Oh god, you can feel yourself dying. It’s oddly intimate, Bendy curled up close to you, teeth and length buried inside of you. Your blood mixing with the ink. You’re being claimed and devoured by some dark god.

Bendy bites again. There’s a crunch that reverberates throughout your whole body.

You don’t struggle anymore. You would if you could, but you’re so very tired, everything hurts an amorphous ache that doesn’t distinguish between teeth or claw or spikes. You’re cold. You don’t want to die.

Bendy wraps his body around yours. Nothing is responding to your commands anymore. Limbs won’t move; air won’t enter or exit your lungs.

Bendy holds you close, and you’re so, so afraid.

You don’t want to die. You don’t want to die. You don’t

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Feel free to drop on by the NSFW BatIM server I help run here: <https://discord.gg/vzCUwN5>


	2. The River

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was going to be a one shot, but my hand slipped. Also took some liberties with setting bc ~ooo magical shifting setting~

You don’t know where you’re going, only that you’re moving forward. And down. Very, very far down. Going back up, back to the normal world you once knew, isn’t an option. Ink stands in pools above you, drowning any hope of passage back that way. That life is gone now, impossible to return to even if you do make it out of this alive. You’ve seen what horrors the world can hold. The scars run deeper than the scratches on your arms and legs.

Every level you descend into hell, things get more and more surreal, more and more nightmarish. Once, you naively thought that after George died nothing could get worse, but you’ve endured formless searchers, mutilated angels, malformed and monstrous Butcher Gang members. Every level, you grow harder. You learn more. You survive.

The studio has long since stopped resembling a studio. Now it’s some dream-like mixture of wooden pathways, brick, gears, stone and ink. Ink everywhere, dripping down chasms, flooding caverns. Halls lead nowhere, or fall away into a void, cages — there are _cages_ — house moaning, swaying, sad creatures. They’re people. You know this instinctively. These are — were — human beings.

Though you don’t fear them, you avoid them, and they don’t care to pursue you or even acknowledge your existence. It’s better that way. There’s nothing you can do to help them.

The thing you’ve learned to fear the most is the Ink Demon. Somehow, someway, he’s left a wound deep inside of you that doesn’t heal, that taught you to fear him above all else.

It unsettles you and teaches you to hide away as soon as his inky aura stains the walls, but doesn’t slow you for long. You’ve nothing left to do but continue. Hope you’ll find answers or an exit. That’s all that matters. You’ll settle for either.

Sometimes you rest, crammed into a Miracle station as monsters stalk just outside. It’s a fitful sleep, jerking awake at every shuffling step, every imagined groan of wood giving way. You eat the disgusting canned soups that taste more like ink than food. You find a way to live. And you keep descending.

Down, down, down. You’re armed with a fire ax, your one companion and more than capable to take out the lesser monsters. You don’t know if you’re killing them, or they’re simply returning to the puddles to reform later and attack once more, but you can clear a path. You can make it. You thank George and wonder briefly if she’s watching over you for you to have lasted this long. Of the two of you, she was always better at the physical, enduring and acting on instinct. She should have survived, but, instead, you did. You’ll do your best to keep surviving.

You feel the weight of the world above you growing heavier and heavier as you descend. How far into the beast you’ve gone, and you do consider this world a beast in its own right. It groans and sloshes, shifts and sways. Reality seems to splinter here and struggle to hold tight to its own sense of being.

But where reality frays, you grow stronger. You’ve cried, you’ve stalled, you’ve begged God for any sort of help and none has come. The only God to be found here is the Ink Demon. You refuse to bow down to the thing that traps you, that killed George.

You’re always moving, until you finally come across an obstacle you’ve not encountered before: a winding, underground river. It’s flowing from rock wall into darkness through a brickwork tunnel. Half manmade, half cavern, entirely unnatural.

The thick, swirling ink twists your stomach to even look upon, the idea of what might be lurking a sudden, overwhelming thought. You’ve felt the ink closing in on you before, in your nightmares when you’ve been able to manage sleep. You don’t want to experience it in actuality. You’ll find a different route.

  
  
  


After searching, you come to the sinking realization there is no other route. This is a dead-end, but for the rickety boats thrown together from mismatched parts. They bob innocently in the current, inviting you in. You consider, instead, going back. Forcing your way up out of the caves, back into the studio where the Ink Demon hunts. Back, all the way to the exit — a flight of fantasy you allow yourself given the only true option before you. The Ink Demon or the ink river. It’s still a difficult choice.

When ink stains the stalagmites and stalactites, when you hear that heartbeat thudding that means danger of the most frightening kind, your decision is made for you. The river.

You gather your skirt up and board with reluctance as the boat rocks beneath you. Though the demon is somewhere behind you, you still dread the river. There are lights in the tunnel, weak and pathetic dots of yellow, and a single lamp is tied to a post on the boat. Everything else is darkness. It’s the only option you have, so it will do.

The boat is cartoonishly simple in its design. You cast off the mooring rope and ease the throttle up. The ink crawls along the walls. You crawl along the river. Slowly, slowly. This boat wasn’t meant for speed and rattles as though it’s on the verge of collapse.

You glance backward. On the shore, in the quickly darkening gloom, stands the Ink Demon. Taller than a normal man, skeletal, twisted halfway between cartoon and human. He has no eyes, but you can feel him watching you. You imagine his body contorting more, sprouting limbs like flowers blossoming. You don’t know where that image comes from, but it shakes you to your core.

Then you round a bend and darkness falls. He doesn’t follow. You pull down the throttle and drift along in the current.  The walls pull away from the light until you can’t see them anymore, and there’s only a vast, echoing silence in their place.

Your breath seems unimaginably loud here, and you’re not foolish enough to think that you’re safe. No place is safe, especially not sitting atop a river (a sea?) of ink. You can hear the gentle, melodic plinking of ink falling from above, far away from you. Ink sloshes against the sides of your boat, and it feels so fragile, like a paper boat just waiting to collapse and sink.

The enormity of the world you’re in begins to settle. There’s no guide, no direction for you to travel anymore. Just a great, devouring emptiness. And you’re in the middle of it, trapped in a little globe of light.

You do something you very much don’t want to do, but experience has taught you to do many things you’d rather not. So you do it, without hesitation.

You reach up and turn off the light.

It’s like being eaten alive by a dark beast with stone teeth and inky saliva. Yet, without the light, you can see much more. As your eyes slowly adjust, you find that it’s not pitch blackness. There are bubbles of light far, far away. You dare not hope they’re anything, but they do give you a direction to go. They’re some sign of warmth, of life, in this cold, cold void.

You fumble for the throttle, and the engine grumbling to life screams in the darkness. You wince, but press on.

As you approach, you see they are lights on a dock, slipshod much like the one you left. On the stone wall behind them, cast in the golden glow, are the words “HE WILL SET US FREE.” You’ve seen these signs all over, and now you think you know who writes them: those lost and tormented souls. You hope one day they are set free. You hope you find your own way to freedom sooner.

You almost don’t register the thing that rises up between you and the dock, it lifts so silently, with barely a ripple in the ink. It’s absurd and horrific. Fingers as big as your torso, dirty white, and bulbous like fungus bloom on the end of a long, black arm. It sways, groping the air blindly, before splashing down inches from your boat. The entire thing rocks dangerously in the ensuing waves, and you cling to the rail.

You can’t even process the horror of what must lurk beneath, if that was a single arm. The arm itself is a nightmare given form. It’s so unlike anything you’ve seen before, so impossibly large, impossibly vile. You can’t fight that. You can only run.

It lurches slowly out of the ink again as you pull the throttle back and the boat reverses with agonizing laziness.

The quiet of the cavern around you is full of expectation, now, as you steer without a course in mind. The hand -- the creature, is it even an entire creature, or just some single limb hunting, groping through the darkness like those blind, white animals in caves -- whatever it is pursues slowly, dips down into the ink only to rise up closer, to the side or just in front of you.

You don’t know where you’re going, you pray you don’t hit anything looming out of the ink that you can barely make out. Twisted shapes like rock formations or bits of debris -- bits of other boats, you realize, as you glide past a shattered husk of one.

This can’t go on forever. You’ll run aground, run into a wall or a stalagmite, run out of fuel. So much could slow you just enough to allow the hand to catch up --

The boat sputters to a halt. You whip around, expecting to find the hand grabbing the paddle wheel, but there’s nothing there. The hand’s gone.

Warily, you decelerate and approach the wheel to examine it. You can still hear the engine’s grumbling, though it’s fading into quiet, and can see the wheel trying to turn, but black blobs of ink (you assume everything is ink, now) are wedged in it.

You claw at the globules, tear them off like leeches stuck to flesh, and fling them far away into the ink surrounding you. There’s barely a concern for your fingers in the mechanisms, because what could happen to you if you get caught is much worse than losing a finger or two.

Suddenly, you’re free. The wheel spins a little then stops naturally.

A shiver races down your spine. You look up. The hand is nearly within grabbing distance.

Without a second to lose, you dart back to the throttle and jam it up. The engine sputters to life, the hand paws the air where you had been a moment before. You watch, heart in your throat, as it sways thoughtfully then sinks down into the murky depths once more.

It makes no sound, and that’s the worst part of it. Even Bendy throbs with noise, the walls of the studio thump like a heartbeat. Yet here there’s only silence. You’ve never experienced it like this before in your life. There’s always been the sound of cars, the birds and bugs, and they all seem so far away now, and you’re crying now, blurring the darkness around you. The silence is so heavy, so oppressive and suffocating—

The hand slams down on you. It happens before you’ve even realized it’s there, and the pressure sends the boat plunging down until ink overflows its sides and sloshes against you. Thick, soft fingers heft you up. The boat sinks. You’re left dangling, pain lacing up your skull and across your body from the attack. You can’t even breath, it’s crushing you so hard.

No. It isn’t fair. You’ve survived so much. So many horrors, so many monsters. _You survived_. And yet — life isn’t fair, especially here. Death even less so. You’re going to die, you realize. It’s a cold realization as you wheeze and claw at the soft, squishy ink-flesh holding you. You’re going to die, drowned by a cartoon hand. It’d be funny if it wasn’t so real.

You’re yanked down into the ink.

  
  
  


Death comes slowly, sluggishly. Even it struggles through the ink. You can’t see anything, though your eyes are open. Blackness presses on you, pressure hard and stinging. It chokes you, and your screams disappear in bubbles that you’re sure never reach the surface.

You’re dragged into an endless well of ink. It licks at your skin, currents caressing you gently but insistently, telling you that this is where you belong, this is where you should be. This is where you die.

You scratch and drag at the hand with your own, weakening fingers. But there’s nothing to grab. Nothing to struggle against. You’re clawing at yourself, yet you’re still being pulled down. The ink all around you is the hand, you suddenly realize. It’s not a creature in the ink, it’s the ink itself.

It could have taken you at any instant, yet chose not to. It toyed with you, let you think you could escape, but as soon as you got on the boat you were doomed. You kick and writhe and struggle anyway.

You break the surface. Ink, viscous and cold, drips down your face, pulls at your bedraggled strands of hair. But there’s air, and it’s even colder. Your gaze flickers around. It’s still oppressively dark, still heavy and miasmic and blinding. You suck in air, choke, hack, fight to stay above the surface, fight to breathe.

Until your eyes alight on the dying, flickering lamp of what remains of your boat. It’s cracked in half like an egg, half-sunk in the mire of ink. You strike out for it, limbs leaden, body wanting nothing more than to sink down into the abyss beneath you again. How nice that would be, just to rest. To stop fighting. There’s no point to it anyway, no point to anything. You’re already dead. Your body knows it, your brain just hasn’t caught up, and your heart refuses to accept it.

You touch the cartoon-scrawl wood of the boat. You drag yourself, sodden and dripping, more ink than human you feel, up onto the part that still remains afloat. You’re not dead. You’re alive. You’re just so, so tired.

You roll onto your back so you don’t have to see the glistening skin of ink all around. The void above you extends far past where the light can reach, but it feels so low, the weight of the world crashing down on you.

When the hand rises up again, you do nothing. You don’t want to die, but there’s nothing left to do. You can’t win.

As though sensing your defeat, it descends slowly this time, mushy white palm coming to rest like a heavy blanket on your torso, fingers curling gently around your body.

“Please, no, no,” you sob quietly, but the hand has no no ears to hear you. You will your arms to move, but they won’t respond anymore. You’ve lost all power over your own body.

It squeezes you carefully. You can feel your own heart thudding against its squishy surface. You think it can feel it too, as it releases you, then squeezes again, mimicking the pounding of your terrified heart. It lets go entirely, then, and its fingertips begin to palpate your body blindly.

They’re thick and pudgy, like pudding in a glove, and their movements are clumsy as they roam over your face, your chest, as they dip between your legs. They feel weak, but you’re weaker.

The hand takes your left leg between two fingers and, as though to disprove your thought, wrenches. As easily as a piece of dry spaghetti, your leg snaps. A thin wail pierces the silence, and you spasm like a dying fish. The cold is washed away in an icy heat that burns up your thigh. You find the energy to push against the hand, but your own hands simply sink into its flesh. You pull back quickly, and your fingers are covered in chunky wet clumps of white ink.

It works its way lower, to your shin, and repeats the process with all the wonderment in its movements of a child who just discovered how to rip the wings off of butterflies. You’re so fragile in its grip, a broken doll. Your pleas, your desperate, breathless screams, are swallowed by the darkness.

It picks you up again and shakes your limp body before throwing you away from the light, into the pitch black unknown.

You hit something hard and slide, getting scrapes all across your face and arms, and oh god your leg is twisted in a way it shouldn’t be able to go. You can see the white of bone. You can see, you realize.

Though it’s faint and gloaming, there’s a diffusion of light from some unknown source. It’s so weak that everything looks hulking and dark, but you — you’re on a shore. It threw you onto a rocky piece of solid ground. Intentionally or not (and you, in your heady haze of pain suspect not), the hand got you away.

You’re still half in the ink, though. You will your arms to move. It’s like fighting through molasses. They don’t want to move, but a new hope has bloomed in your heart. You’re broken and maimed, but you don’t have to die here. You can still — you can still survive.

Your fingers dig furrows into the ground as you drag yourself free of the ink. Yes, yes. You’re not defeated yet. Through tears and spit and ink dripping out of your mouth, you make your way to higher ground.

You risk a glance behind you. The hand is there, swaying as though waving goodbye. You shudder. You’re still too close to the inkline.

Ink veins spread out like cracks in ice, and the silence all around you is penetrated by the familiar thud-thud thrum of Bendy’s ink.

 _No, no, no_. There’s no place of safety, no Miracle Station, nowhere to hide that you can reach in your current state.

You can’t even see him, but know he’s here, somewhere in the gloom. The crunch of gravel and shifting stone beside you —

You flip over and instantly regret it as the world spins with racking pain, as your vision is filled with the Ink Demon’s grin. As though he’s been waiting for you to wash ashore, right into his mismatched, hideous grasp.

When he touches you, all you can think is you’re tired of being touched. You flinch away from the white of Bendy’s hand, and thin, dark fingers squeeze your other arm painfully through your ink-soaked sweater sleeve.

He’s been hunting you for so long, yet you have no clue what to expect of him, what he wants from you. You’d thought your death, but he’s not killing you. He’s toying with you, too. His misshapen hands roam across your body.

You try to speak, but only cough up ink. It dribbles coldly across your cheek. You don’t know what you’d planned to say, anyway. What is there to say to the monster who’s hunted you floor to floor, and finally has you in his clutches?

He’s crouched between your legs, one a twisted, mangled mass of agony, the other thin and ink-smeared and so, so vulnerable splayed out beside the Ink Demon’s body. His hands trail down to the edge of your skirt, then work their way up underneath, bunching the wet fabric around your waist. Fingers drag along your thighs, colder than cold and impossible to ignore despite the waves of pain from your leg, from your lungs. It’s oddly gentle and deeply invasive. Like George’s hands in the darkness of night — though George is dead. She’ll never touch you again.

You find the energy to cry at the thought of George, and you feel horrible for having forgotten about her. So busy surviving (so busy _failing_ ). Bendy could have killed you and you would have never thought of her again.

But why isn’t Bendy killing you? What is he doing, hands up under your sweater and shirt now, icy against the heat of your flesh. It’s like he’s trying to sink in without breaking the skin, soak up all your life through mere contact alone. That white-gloved hand, soft and firm and slimy, brushes across one breast and you jerk.

“Stop,” you sigh, no force behind the word. Words mean nothing here. Bendy can’t be stopped.

He withdraws his hands and you breath a huff of relief at the loss of contact. It was like he was worming his way inside, like all the ink you swallowed was writhing up to connect with him, digging through you. _Responding_. Your skin twitches under his palms as he spreads your thighs wider.

A thick, curling length drips down from the nothingness between his legs, catching the weak light and drawing your attention. Your brain is slow to process that he’s going to rape you, and you don’t have the energy to fight him off. You hope it’s quick, because there’s no point hoping it won’t happen or that it won’t hurt. He looks thick enough at the base to split you in two, and so, so long. It curls and uncurled like it’s its own separate entity.

You’re being raped by an ink monster. It’s nonsense. It’s terrifying. You want to die. A hand slips between your legs and tears away your underwear. Absurdly, you think that it’ll never be white again, and your mother will be upset.

Bendy braces himself, hands on either side of you, grin looming above you, as he slithers into your body. He burns cold against all your heat, and he’s wet enough that the initial violation only stings.  But then he’s going deeper, you feel him moving inside, and you arch away as more pain blossoms at your groin.

You groan out a non-word and twist your body, but you haven’t the energy to struggle and he seems to know. He takes his time.

You slump to the hard ground, exhausted, and can only stare up at Bendy’s unchanging face as he undulates gently against your unresponsive body. This feels wrong, even moreso than the expected wrongness of violation. You keep spasming, expecting him to tear through you, expecting him to pull away with a fount of blood as your innards are torn from your body —

This has happened before. Bendy’s raped you. Bendy’s _killed_ you. Oh god. Oh god, oh god, you’ve died before.

You scream, high and piercing, and the memory of death propels you to fight. To survive.

You claw at Bendy’s arms, at his face, breaking nails on his hideous, sketchy grin. There are no eyes there to gouge, but you try anyway. You yank on his bow tie. Your fingers drag across his emaciated chest.

It does nothing. Bendy is immovable above you and inside of you. He’s not moving, and that rictus grin feels mocking as though he knows what you’ve only just realized. He does. He knows everything. His ink is inside of you, worming into your brain.

“No, please — stop — stop —“ you sob out, body succumbing to fatigue again. The pain of your broken leg is a dull background throb to the pain of Bendy inside of you, the phantom pain of him tearing you apart.

He begins rutting gently against you once more. You can do nothing but stare up at his grin. Ink drips onto your face from Bendy in long, thick strands. His entire body but for his snapping hips is still. Your hips jerk and twitch at each stab of pain, and your mind is far away, caught up in a different time, a different rape.

Bendy grinds into you for what feels like hours, pulling waves of pain from your broken body. His hands tear through your sweater and shirt, squeeze your breasts and dig scratches along your sides. This is your entire existence now, splayed whorishly beneath a monster, aching body arching away from every thrust but there’s nowhere to go. You’re not a person anymore. You’re just some toy, body pulled like a puppet with strings. You’re waiting to die. Bendy grins above you. He grins and grins and grins.

You don’t register at first when he pulls out of you, but suddenly his face is receding into the gloom as he climbs to his feet. It doesn’t matter that it’s not there anymore; it’s burned into your eyeballs, yellow as a harvest moon. His presence is carved into your body, deep inside and oozing with the blood that wells from the cuts, from your entrance.

It’s not being torn apart, but your body feels like he did that, anyway.

Bendy leaves you and doesn’t even have the courtesy to kill you, this time. The ink veins on the cave floor recede. You’re still alive.

You cling to that fact. _You’re still alive_.

You’ve been violated, you’ve been broken, you’ve been drowned and tortured, but you’re still alive.

Laughter spills out of you, wet and bubbling with ink. You’re alive. Living hurts so, so much. You can’t move.

Ink leeches from the ground near your head, and you don’t have the energy to fight as one of those half-formed searchers rises up and lurches toward your body. All you can do is laugh as it grabs your head and smashes it against the ground, its movements full of mindless rage. Again, again, crunching until you’re tasting blood, you feel something warm and wet on the back of your head, underneath all the ink. You’re alive, and very soon you won’t be, not because of Bendy, not because of that monstrous hand, but because of some weak, pathetic searcher.

You’re laughing as it bashes you to death.


	3. Sanity 1/2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this took a sharp turn into a be mean to sammy chapter. also, there's now a NSFW BatIM discord server if anyone would like to join: <https://discord.gg/vzCUwN5>

You watch ink bead up and drip down the wall like blood. Like a horror movie in black and filthy yellow. You imagine the ink running the other way, back up and into the wall. Reverse. Repeat. Reverse.

George lays next to you, body growing cold, her brown hair a halo around her head. You remember dying. You wonder if George ever does, too, and you wonder how many times you _don’t_ remember.

You wonder if this is even real. Maybe you’re just a character in a story that gets told a little differently each time. Maybe you never existed outside of these wooden walls.

You wonder a lot of things, but wondering accomplishes nothing. Nothing accomplishes anything. Your thoughts are all looped and tangled and your heart hurts even though you’ve seen George die a dozen times. You’d think you’d grow numb to it at some point, but each death is a new pain. It hurts worse, seeing George die than dying yourself. Not physically, but in your head.

Your head hurts so much right now.

You draw your knees up to your face and press your forehead against them, press your hands to your ears and feel the thump-thump-thump of the ink machine. It never stops. You imagine it works much like your heart, keeping the cycle going.

You should move. You should do something, though everything feels futile right now. There’s no point.

“I’m sorry, George,” you say to her corpse. “I messed up. Again.”

You’d tried to convince her to leave this place before you’d even begun your exploration. The sheer panic in your face and voice made it an easy sell. George was adventurous, not cruel. She let you lead her back to the entrance.

That was when you found out the door wouldn’t open. The word EXIT hung above it, mocking you, and _it wouldn’t open_. Your panic started to bleed over to George, then, and the two of you worked as one to pry it open. Of course, it wouldn’t budge, you thought. You aren’t meant to escape. You’re meant to die here, over and over and over.

You told George everything, and you’re sure she thought you were mad. You told her how much you loved her, all the things you’d dreamed you’d do together. You begged her to believe you when you said that this place wasn’t safe. That there were _things_ that lurked in the ink.

She hadn’t believed you, and you had the horrible thought that maybe you _were_ mad. That none of what you remembered actually happened, that it was all simply some sick conjuration of your mind. The things you were describing were impossible, after all. They couldn’t exist in the world you knew. You wished for that to be true. 

Real or not, it hadn’t changed the fact that you were both trapped here. They had no option but to leave the door and find a different way out. George had to pry you from it, and you jumped at every shadow. She thought you were being irrational, but you could hear the thudding of the machine, a constant background noise that most wouldn’t even question but you do. Why is it running? _How_ is it running? What is it doing? 

Then, the ink came to life and George had to see you weren’t mad. You had to see it, too, and accept that everything has happened before.

George fought them off well this time, but she hadn’t seen the one blocking the infirmary door, hiding in the flood of ink there. It had dragged her under, and though you’d clawed and struggled to heave her back up, slowly, slowly her struggles weakened then died, then so did she.

You sat there, half in the ink, George’s skin under your nails from where you’d dug into her arms, waiting for the searcher to rise up again and kill you, too. It never comes. 

Eventually, you force yourself to leave. You can’t bear to stay there any longer.

You extract yourself from the ink and ascend the stairs. You’ll do this again. You’ll play Bendy’s game.

Something hits you in the back of the head.

 

 

 

 

You come to with pain lacing down your skull and along your shoulder. Your ears are ringing, and everything is out of focus. You’re upright, but not of your own volition. Ropes wrap around your waist and arms, holding them in place. You tug and they give slightly. Not well wrapped at all.

There are candles around you and a pentagram on the floor. You’ve seen those enough that they don’t even phase you anymore.

Someone enters the room. You look up and the world spins sickeningly. You can feel blood crusting the side of your head, sticking your hair to your skin.

The person is wearing overalls and has a mask that, under any other circumstance should look silly but here looks grotesque and hideous. It’s a Bendy face with its teeth punched out.

You groan and try to form words, but your mouth is all gummy and dry.

“Ah, sheep, you’re awake,” the figure coos. “Just in time.” He reaches a hand out and lifts your chin. “You’re different from the others. I’m sure you’ll please my Lord greatly.” He lets it fall again to your chest.

“Who—“ You can’t form thoughts well. They’re sluggish and confused.

“Who am I?” he provides. That wasn’t what you were going to ask, but you say nothing. You’re starting to put the pieces together. You can figure out who his lord is. 

“I’m his most ardent disciple. His prophet. Your shepherd. And you, my sheep, are my sacrifice to him.”

This person is one of the most articulate you’ve met so far. You find some relief that not everyone is like those lost souls or those searchers, but it’s short-lived. If he would just shut up for five seconds, you might be able to reason with him. But he goes on as you piece together what’s happening.

“My Lord will come, crawling through the pipes! With love comes sacrifice, and I will show my love to him. Yes, sheep, he will know me, and free me. His sweet blessings will be mine.”

“He won’t,” you say, though the words feel heavy and sandy in your mouth. “He doesn’t free people.”

He laughs, sharp and short. The mask stares at you as though you’d committed some great crime. “What do you know of freedom? What do you know of my lord?”

“I’ve met him. He’s killed me before. Over and over and over--”

The man hits you. Everything slides into blackness for a moment, before fading back into existence. You feel like you’re going to vomit.

How anyone can worship Bendy is beyond you. He’s a nightmare, unfeeling, uncaring. Just raping and torturing and killing. This man is absolutely mad to think Bendy is anything but a monster.

“Don’t you speak such blasphemies, sheep,” he hisses as he begins to pace the room. “I know my lord. I hear him whisper to me, telling me secrets, guiding my hand. I am his chosen. I will be freed by him. I will be taken into his embrace – ah!” He cuts himself off, hearing something you can’t. “He comes. Let him take you, sheep. Let him show you the wonders of his being. Sheep, sheep, sheep, it’s time for sleep.” He backs away from you, humming a little as he continues his rhyme.

“No! Wait, please!” you scream, pulling at the ropes. They’re old and brittle, you’re sure if you just keep trying – the man ducks into another room and the door closes. You pause. You can’t hear Bendy over the sound of your own heart and the pain in your head. “Don’t leave me in here!”

“Rest your head,” he says from the speakers around you. “It’s time for bed.”

The first person you’ve met who can speak, who can think, and he’s sacrificing you. You heave against the ropes at the injustice of it all, and this time they snap. You’re free. It takes you a moment to realize that, but as soon as you do you jump into action.

You search for some way out of here, before Bendy can come. There are only two entrances, one which has the man behind it. The other then. It leads to darkness.

And that thumpthumpthump of the ink demon.

You see his figure in the darkness, glistening and lurching. You know already you’re going to die. It’s inevitable.

“My lord comes, sheep! Embrace him.”

You’re free, but you can’t move your feet. It’s like your body is obeying the man’s commands instead of your own. Like you know deep down that this is how it ends, no matter what. Because it is. You’re going to die so soon this time.

You tear your eyes away from the dark hall and his approaching figure. Tears well up, making it hard to see.

No, you won’t die cowering. You won’t die raped and broken, either. You’ll force him to make it quick.

You don’t know what angers an eldritch abomination, but you won’t quietly accept your fate. Not this time.

You shove yourself away from the pole you were tied to and forward, toward the demon. One step, then another, almost mimicking the way he walks in his more humanoid form. Everything lists with your movements, but you press on.

“You bastard!” you scream at him. “You – you mistake! Abomination! You’re not Bendy!”

That causes a reaction, as the inky veins spread around you, and he speeds his approach.

“Hah! You don’t like that? You’re nothing like him!” you continue, catching yourself on a support. “You’re a monster! You’re wrong and twisted and –“

A hand latches around your throat, but Bendy isn’t even close to you yet. You’re yanked back against the support, halting any of your progress. More inky arms wrap around you, oozing from the wood itself. Bendy’s never done this before, but you suppose he’s never been _mad_ before, either. Your bravado flickers as breathing becomes more laborious.

“My lord,” the man calls out over the radio. “She doesn’t believe. She’s a wretched blasphemer, sullying your name. But I know you. I believe in you, my –“

More hands emerge from the roof and crush the speakers.

You struggle against the hands wrapped around you, immediately regretting angering the demon. Even angered he doesn’t seem willing to simply kill you. If he was he would have killed you without even reaching you. But no, he’s holding you in place. He has something much worse planned.

When Bendy arrives, he’s in some halfway form between his humanoid self and a writhing mass of limbs. You can’t look away from the grin you see between all those hands.

He practically falls against you, his full weight crushing you against the support. It groans in protest but doesn’t give. Fingers tipped with claws tear at your clothes, rip through your sweater and skirt like tissue, leave your shirt in tatters. Scratches begin to well with blood and sting all across your body.

You shiver as coldness caresses your breast, stomach, and thighs. You’re exposed before the demon, and can’t help the flush that stains your cheeks and neck. He’s done so much to you, but he’s never stripped you before. It’s humiliating, though there’s nobody else to see.

“S-stop,” you say as his hands begin to knead your breasts and grope at your thighs. You wanted a quick death. One with dignity. As though reading your mind, Bendy seems determined to deny you even that. Despite his anger earlier, he’s calm now. Frighteningly so.

His exploration of your body is slow and deliberate, pawing and caressing with careful movements that rub ink into your wounds and sends them stinging afresh. You twitch under his ministrations. He’s not supposed to be like this. He’s all violence and horror. He preys on you, mind and body.

His face comes to rest between your thighs. You lower your head and blink away the tears.

Bendy opens his mouth, teeth perfectly flat and symmetrical, and a long black tongue slithers out. You hate his tongue, remembering it crawling across your face. It’s dripping ink onto the floor. He’s going to eat you, starting there.

His tongue laps at your lips, and a shudder passes through your body. It’s cold as ice and _wet_. He licks again, and your breath picks up. You don’t understand what he’s doing. It doesn’t hurt, but –

Bendy begins to lick with vigor, tongue wriggling into your tight body, pulling out again to lap at you, dip in again. Repeat. Over and over, as hands roam and squeeze and play with your body.

“Stop!” you repeat, but it’s weak and breathless. He’s doing something to you, something awful and strange. It makes your thighs shake and your belly tremble as you jerk against him, your body just a puppet in his many, many hands.

“B-Bendy, please don’t,” you gasp out, “Please.”

He ignores your pleading, just like he ignores your tears. You’re always begging, by the end, and it’s shameful here because he hasn’t even hurt you badly. You’re so weak. You always are.

Bendy continues his gentle ministrations, tireless and sloppy. You don’t look anymore, but you can hear the wet suction of his tongue pressing into your body, pulling back out. Ink drips down your thighs. It disgusts you, but your hips roll against his mouth.

The hand around your throat tightens, turning your pleas into raspy gasps. You’re pathetic. You’re just a toy that he enjoys breaking and fixing and breaking again. You’re not even fighting anymore.

As you give up any hope of dying quickly, of not feeling anything, you relax against his mouth. He’s making you feel _good_. And, horribly, you want to feel good. You’re so tired of all the fear and pain. It’s the worst thing he’s done yet.

Hands pull your thighs wider apart, granting Bendy better access. He delves into you with renewed vigor. His tongue swirls, and you feel a tension building that travels all down your thighs and up your back.

Bendy’s tongue rolls against you and pushes in deep, undulating inside you as you groan and spasm around him. Your movements drag at the hand around your throat, choking you more. You futilely hope that he squeezes and crushes your neck. You disgust yourself even as you melt against him. Your body isn’t yours anymore, if it ever was.

Like the death you most recently remember, Bendy pulls away without killing you himself. The hands retract into the wood and he backs away, vile tongue lolling out of his mouth.

You watch numbly as he disappears into the wall as well. You’re not dead. You’re barely hurt. You’re just gross inside and out.

He’s changed the game. He keeps doing that. It’s not fair. Nothing about this is, but you only have a tired sort of anger left to keep you going.

Someone else will kill you, then. Something else.

The door flies open, and the man from before storms out. Oh.

You reflexively curl your knees up to yourself, trying nonsensically to preserve some modesty.

“You wretched creature,” he growls as he approaches, hands raised as though he would do what Bendy didn’t and strangle you. “Why are you still alive? _How_ are you still alive?”

He’s not so frightening anymore. Just some lunatic begging for attention he doesn’t realize he doesn’t want. You pity him.

You also refuse to be killed by him. You don’t know why you can’t just lay down and accept death, which would be so much easier, but you keep fighting. So the game has changed. So Bendy didn’t kill you. Bendy must expect you to die at the hands of his mad worshipper.

When the man comes close enough to strangle you, you throw yourself at him. You used to have no fighting experience of any kind, but you’ve been here for so long, you’ve redone this story a hundred times. You remember how to fight.

The man stumbles back, and you press on. Your hands reach for his ugly mask and rip it from his head. It slips from your grip and clatters far away. You’re about to go for his eye sockets when he shoves you off of him, one hand flying to his face while the other begins groping along the floor.

“My face! Where is it? Where is it?”

You watch him search for his mask for a moment, then turn tail and run, all modesty forgotten. Ink is splashed down your thighs, smeared across your arms and torso. You’ll never be clean again, as surely as stains of ink on paper.

There’s no joy at your survival, no pleasure. You know this is just part of his game. But there’s nothing left for you to do but play it through to the end.


	4. Sanity 2/2

You feel particularly vulnerable without clothes on, but you have no choice but to go deeper. You know what lurks below, rivers swollen with ink and darkness so profound you can’t even breathe.

You don’t want to go down, but you do. That man might follow you, but you hope to lose him in the labyrinthine guts of the studio. You wish you had a weapon of some sort, or clothes. The cold bites at your skin and the ink is drying crusty and flaky. But you’ve not come across a shred of fabric or an ax, or even broken boards of a useable length.

Every sound makes you jump, every lurching searcher has you running for your life. You’re glad you at least still have your shoes, no matter how nonsensical it is or that they’re stained through with ink. It’s the only comfort you have anymore.

It feels absurd yet especially frightening to be here without any clothes on. The air is so much colder now, and you’re more exposed than you’ve ever been. You keep your arms tucked in close and hunch down as though that will offer any protection.

You don’t know where you’re going (but then again, you never do). You’re just heading forward. Always forward.

Ink blocks path after path, and you refuse to plow through it not knowing what lurks within or beyond. The studio is a beast that stretches on into impossible spaces, snaking through ground and void and swirling inky depths.

Bendy didn’t kill you. He made you feel – feel good, you suppose, though it was tainted with fear and pain. You don’t know if it really qualifies as good, as you’d only been left with a feeling of shame and disgust with yourself afterwards.

Anger burns your cheeks, and tears streak through the ink. You understand fear, you understand pain and horror, but you don’t understand what he did to you. Your body hadn’t been your own anymore. That’s the last thing you can call your own here in this hell, and he took it from you.

You’ve done this so much, and died every time. And every time you learn nothing more about this world you’re trapped in. There’s nothing to learn. You expect to die the same, this round. It’s just a matter of when.

This is what madness feels like. Even if this place does exist, even if you’re really going through reliving the nightmare over and over. You’re tired. You’re scared and naked and _exhausted_. But you don’t even question the reality of what’s being done to you. You’ve given up asking why and how long ago.

Now you simply survive. Or don’t.

You stumble into an elevator and look blearily at the panel. None of these letters and numbers mean anything to you. It’s all gibberish. You wonder if any of them go up.

You push one at random.

It descends. You accept that in stride.

When the speakers crackle to life you about leap out of your skin, though. You half expect that man’s voice to pour out, but are completely caught off guard by a woman’s instead.

“Well, what do we have here?” she asks. You say nothing, not even sure if she can hear you or not. It doesn’t seem to matter, as she continues, “Ah, it’s you. Inviting yourself into my home. Most know better by now.”

The elevator descends. She continues talking. She sounds more stable than that man, except for the occasional jerk in her voice where it goes higher, sounds afraid.

“It’s so dark down here. You don’t belong. But it’s too late for you now, isn’t it? It’s too late for any of us. You’ve met the demon, I can tell. So now I think it’s time you meet an angel.”

You stare at your hands, covered in ink. Too late. Hearing another person voice it, though, lends a certain sort of reality to the situation. An angel. You suspect this is Alice Angel, then. You’ve never met anyone but Bendy and that man and formless, thoughtless searchers and people, but if there’s Bendy no matter how monstrous and malformed, there very well could be an Alice.

The elevator stops on level nine and opens. You step out, immediately wary of Bendy or searchers. Instead, you see a woman’s figure far away, across the vast room. She turns and walks through a doorway.

You hesitate. She’s the most normal person you’ve seen so far, but the way she spoke, the things she said – you’re justifiably wary.

“Have you seen the Miracle Stations?” the woman asks through the speakers. “The boxes that bear my symbol? They know to fear it. I’ve made them fear it.”

You know who she means. The searchers and Butcher Gang members. Bendy, sometimes. This woman shows no love for Bendy, which is a relief. But she seems a force to be reckoned with in her own right, if what she says is true.

“You’re naked. Perhaps we can fix that.”

 _That_ catches your attention. This is the first time since George that someone’s shown concern for you here. You shift self-consciously from one foot to the other. It hadn’t mattered that you were naked in front of that man, as you’d been focused on escape above all else. But you stand here now, naked and alone, body feeling not quite your own. You’d like any sense of normalcy to return. The world’s wrong, you’re wrong, and you want something to go right for once.

Besides, it’s not like things could get _worse_.

You step forward.

 

 

You continue until you come across a scene of carnage. Characters – Boris, you identify – are strung up and gutted. You’re not surprised, exactly, because nothing in this hellscape surprises you anymore. But you are unnerved. She’s ferocious.

Alice stands beside one of the corpses, studying it. Beyond her lays a giant pool of ink. Nothing seems to be living in it, perhaps too afraid of her. Like they fear Bendy. But unlike Bendy, Alice isn’t hunting you or raping you. She’s even offered you help.

“Alice Angel?” you ask. She turns to face you. You don’t even bat an eye at her mutilated face. She’s mostly recognizable as human, though. You cling to that.

“Ah, you don’t know me, I suppose.” Her gaze roves over you and you try not to show weakness or discomfort. She reaches a hand out to touch you. You can’t help but flinch, but she presses on. Her fingers are cold as they brush your arm. “I used to be like you, you know. Real flesh, warm and flush with blood. Until I was fed into the machine.”

“I just want to leave.”

“Don’t we all?” She turns away from you again and begins walking. After a moment’s hesitation, you follow. “Do you remember the world outside? I do. Sunshine, grass. It sounds like heaven.”

“I do! I don’t belong here.”

“None of us do, except the ink demon. Yet here we are. And here we are.” She stops in a hallway beyond the room of horror and opens a box. You can’t help but stare at her halo, which bobs with her every movement. You wonder if it hurts her any. She pulls out an outfit similar to her own, spattered across with ink, and tosses it at you.

You catch the dress and shake it out. You don’t question the ink stains on it, but simply slip it on. Alice contemplates you as you pull the dress down. It’s shorter than your skirt was, which makes you feel awkward, but less so than being naked.

“Thank you,” you say after a moment. “You’re the first person I’ve met who’s…. sane. There’s a man who worships that thing…”

“Ah, you must have met Sammy,” Alice says, tucking a strand of hair behind your ear. You tense at the contact, but it’s harmless. Innocent.

“Sammy?” It’s such an absurdly normal name for that man. Sammy the prophet. Sammy the lunatic.

“He used to be so handsome. That’s what the ink demon does. He ruins people.” She lifts a hand to touch the mutilated side of her face, then reaches toward your face and touches it. “But you? You’re pristine. Unmarred. It’s curious.”

You think of the times you’ve died, the contact that still creeps along your skin like invisible bruises, but say nothing. You know on some level Alice is just as mad as the others, she’s only hiding it better. You’ll take it, though, because you have nothing else.

Alice leads you to a back room that looks almost homey. A cot, a table. Even a clock though time means nothing to you anymore. There are drawings all along the walls, different from the ones you’ve seen. Of flowers, trees, songs. Less homey is the table with the corpse of a Butcher Gang member strapped to it, just in front of a large window. You look away and contemplate the bed instead.

“Everyone has their sanctuaries,” Alice says, pulling your attention back to her. “And this is mine. I haven’t slept in years, but sometimes I like to pretend.”

“I’m sorry,” you say, because you don’t know what else to say.

“What’s it like? The outside? I think I remember it, but it was so long ago, everything’s washed out and faded.” Her voice jumps up into the higher ranges, and her expression changes into something more timid, more afraid. So different from before.

You’re starting to understand her particular brand of madness, though it doesn’t explain the Borises. You don’t know if you want to know her reasoning behind them.

“It’s full of sounds, and smells, and textures,” you say, your own memories soupy and tangled up in previous lives trapped in the studio. “There are so many colors. Reds, blues, greens, yellows. The sun rises and sets. My mom cooks dinner every night, and we sit around and say grace, then watch television afterwards.” Your voice breaks a little, thinking of your family. Your home. George. So much lost to you. So much you took for granted that you’ll never experience again. You miss your bed. You miss your classes, your friends. You miss air that doesn’t reek of ink and fear. You miss having a future.

“Do they still play my cartoons?”

“Yeah,” you say, choking back the tears, glad for the change in topic. “There aren’t any new ones, but the old ones still run sometimes. People like Alice – they like you.”

Alice smiles, and it looks nice so long as you only look at the right side of her face. “I used to be almost perfect, you know. The ink machine made me an angel. It made me Alice.”

“Who… who were you before?”

“I – ahah – I almost forget, sometimes. I’m Alice now, and that’s all that matters. No one can hurt me now.”

No one hurting you sounds wonderful. You hope it really is true, for this poor, mad woman’s sake. “Will that happen to me?”

“Perhaps.” She reaches out and touches you again, on your shoulder. Her fingers are icy, and they seem almost to be seeking out your warmth. They trail down your arm, making you shiver. “I hope not. You really are lovely. So vivid and alive.” Her voice is low and calm, and you find yourself trusting her more. You need someone to trust.

You start to cry.

Alice’s fingers move to cup your face. She strokes the tears away with her ink-stained thumbs. She looks almost enraptured by them, petting over the same paths over and over again.

Soon she makes a shushing sound that billows through the missing part of her mouth. It would disturb you, if you were still new to this world, but you take it for the comfort it is. She leads you to the bed and sits with you on it as you sob against her frigid shoulder. Her fingers run through your hair and down your back. You wish it was George holding you.

Eventually you exhaust your limited supply of tears.

“I’m sorry,” you mumble into the ink of Alice’s skin. She feels like what you’d imagine a corpse would feel like just after death. Too firm, without any of that natural fleshy give.

“You should rest. It must have been so long since you’ve slept.”

You can’t disagree, because you don’t remember the last time you slept, either. Just one death after another, always starting back at the entrance, just after you entered the studio. Sometimes you remembered dying. Sometimes you didn’t. This time you remember so much, it hurts just to think.

You nod. “Yeah. I… I should. Thank you, Alice.”

Alice smiles again, and you try not to be put off by the skin stretching around her exposed teeth. “Sleep well, darling.”

You curl up under the thin blanket that stinks of ink and close your eyes. Exhaustion plunges you quickly into slumber.

 

 

 

You jerk awake and bruise yourself on straps. Everything’s a slurry of light and glass and ink. You’re not in bed anymore. You can see it off to the side. Still in Alice’s sanctuary. Just… you’re strapped to the table the Butcher Gang member had been on.

“I hope you enjoyed your rest,” Alice says, stepping into your field of view. “Do be careful, I tried very hard not to damage you. Don’t want you undoing all my work.”

“What – I –“

Alice laughs. “I’m hurt you don’t remember me, but it worked out in the end.”

At your blank look, she continues, “Your memory is falling to pieces. Big, gaping holes. Nobody escapes the damage done by the ink demon. We’ve met before, you and I.”

You say nothing. The betrayal you feel is mild at most. It’s so hard to feel anything of any intensity anymore under a blanket fear. You pull against the bindings. Unlike Sammy’s ropes, they’re sturdy. Made for holding thrashing victims. You think on those Borises, on the Butcher Gang member.

“I was an instant fan when I first saw you. You were… less so. Perhaps one day you’ll remember. But _I_ remember. I was so worried that demon would get you and ruin you, yet here you are. Whole. Well, mostly, but I don’t need your mind.” She places her hands on your face, drags them down to your neck. “Humans are so fragile. So easy to break, but I only have one of you, so I’ll be careful.”

“What are you going to do to me?”

“What I’ve done to so many others – use you to make myself beautiful.” Her hands travel down your arms, then across your breasts and your stomach. All places Bendy had touched, being claimed again by someone else. “It’s amazing what you miss down here. Real skin, soft, supple. Bruising in colors I’ve not seen for so, so long. Bleeding such bright red. Or you will be, soon.”

She continues stroking your flesh, savoring the feel of it as you shiver uncontrollably in her clutches. This isn’t the ink demon or Sammy. This is cold and calculated. Surgical.

“You’ll make me beautiful again. A worthy cause to die for, don’t you think?”

“I don’t want to die.”

“I’m sorry,” Alice says, and she sounds genuinely sad. Higher pitched, too. “You have to. I must be beautiful again. Undo the damage done to me by that vile demon. The rot – the rot crawls inside of me, breaking me down even now. I’ve been able to assuage the spread, but never fully stop it. Do you know what it’s like? Feeling yourself falling apart? No,” she says before you can even form an answer. “How could you? Perfectly human, entirely mortal. When you fall apart, you die and that’s it. Not so for me. I can hear the puddles calling to me. When I break down, I don’t even die. I exist in exquisite agony, with a thousand other screaming voices. I won’t let them take me again.”

“It’s not it,” you say. “He just brings me back when I die. I’ve done this story a hundred times. I’m just – I’m so tired, Alice. He uses me and breaks me. He plays with my head the same as yours. He’s a monster.”

Her gaze softens again, like it had before, though this time you see no reason for her to fake it. “And I’m not?”

“I don’t know. But he’s worse.”

“He is,” she says softly, then reaches over. You see the flash of something small and sharp. It looks like a piece of metal folded over onto itself, leaving a sharp tip.

You swallow dryly. She’s not going to stop, no matter what you say. “Please –“

“Shh, I must be beautiful again. I must be whole. So many have sacrificed themselves already. I’m so close to perfection.”

She holds your head in one hand, grip strong enough to keep you from moving. You try anyway.

“Alice – I – No—NO!” Your begging gives way to a screech as she drags the homemade scalpel from your hairline, down the side of your nose, digging into the soft flesh around your eye, all the way down to your chin. Her movement is steady and firm. Blood begins to bead and drip as she lifts away the scalpel.

Much like your tears, she seems fascinated by the fluid. It stains her fingertips bright red and stings so badly tears spring to your eyes again. Your breath comes out harsh and sharp. She’s going to pick you apart piece by piece.

Alice slices along your hairline next, down in front of your ear, along your jaw, connecting the two lines. Blood drips into your eye, mixing with the tears.

Everything becomes a haze of red agony as Alice slips the scalpel under your skin and beings to slowly, slowly peel it up. You can feel every slice and separation of flesh from fat and muscle, feel the blood dripping hot and wet onto your shoulder and chest. You scream until you can scream no more, until air struggles to fill your lungs and you choke on blood that drips into your mouth from your sliced lip.

“You really are so lovely,” Alice says quietly, mouth practically against your ear. “So different from those wretched ink creatures who stumble into my domain. You remind me of before. Before the machine, before the ink demon.”

You sob wordlessly as she works, the entire left side of your face on fire. Eventually, after an eternity, she’s done, but the pain doesn’t subside. It only flares hotter down your neck, straining your muscles and lancing through your skull.

Alice studies the skin she’s removed, then sets it aside. Her attention turns to the exposed muscles and fat of your face. She’s studying you. Seeing how you work. Her fingers touch her own face, smearing your blood along the malformed ridges and stretched, melted skin.

Then she cuts through your dress, exposing you again for very different purposes than Bendy. You can’t think through the pain of your face, can’t process what she’s doing until she’s jamming the scalpel into your chest and dragging it down, slicing with sharp, practiced movements. She hacks into the layers, peeling them away from your ribs, Blood coats your legs, drips to the floor along with bits of flesh Alice has cut away.

You can’t scream anymore, though your chest heaves and you spasm against your restraints. Despite the blood and gore, she is being agonizingly careful. You want to die, but death seems far away now.

She cracks your ribs in her slender hands with an ease that shows her true strength, and bends them out like the doors of a treasure box. Blood dribbles from your lips instead of words.

Alice pauses once she’s exposed your organs to the air. You’re vividly aware of your lungs expanding, your heart thudding. She watches, transfixed. Your red, red blood is splashed across her face and body.

You should have passed out by now. You should have fainted from blood loss or shock or something, some escape. But you can’t. You’re forced live this moment, entirely aware.

“I used to have a heart like that. Lungs. Blood,” Alice says quietly, reverently. “Now it’s all ink, like the guts I rip from Borises and Butcher Gang members. I remember my heart beating. The blood rushing through my veins. The warmth. I’m never warm, now. But you are.” Her hands slip into your guts, up to the wrists, and she slides her fingers carefully through them, then up over your diaphragm to wrap loosely around your rabbit-fast heart. Your intestines fall out like a party popper going off, looping ribbons of meat and gore all down your legs. “You’re so warm. So lovely. So _alive_. You’ll die soon, but until then…” Alice leans forward and places a chaste kiss against your mouth. She stands back and her black tongue slips out to lick at the blood smeared over her lips and teeth. God, you wish you would just die. You’re not even processing the pain anymore, like a buzzing that you’ve grown accustomed to. All you feel is numb.

“You’re like an angel. I think you must have come from heaven for me. I met another angel, once. I killed her, too, but she was all ink inside. But you’re not. …. _real_. You … what I need …. decay. You’ll ….. me beautiful….”

Her words fade into gibberish. You’re cold. You’re empty. The world is going black around the edges, as though Bendy is creeping in your mind.


End file.
